He taught philosophy at Jabalpur University, where he received his As a young intellectual, Rajneesh visited with and absorbed insights from teachers of the various religious traditions active in India. He studied philosophy at the University of Jabalpur, earning a B.A. degree (in 1955); he also attended began teaching there in 1957, after earning an M.A. from the University of Saugar(M.A., 1957). He acquired the nickname Rajneesh and took the honorific Bhagwan (Hindi: “god”). After lecturing throughout India, he established an ashram (spiritual community) in Pune (Poona). By the early 1970s his charismatic style and his emphasis on spiritual freedom and sexual experimentation had attracted 200,000 devotees, many from Europe and the United States.In 1981 Rajneesh’s cult purchased a dilapidated ranch in Oregon, U.S., which became the site of Rajneeshpuram, a community of several thousand orange-robed disciples. Rajneesh was widely criticized by outsiders for his private security force and his ostentatious display of wealth. By 1985 . At the age of 21 he had an intense spiritual awakening, which inspired in him the belief that individual religious experience is the central fact of spiritual life and that such experiences cannot be organized into any single belief system.

In 1966 Rajneesh resigned from his university post and became a guru (spiritual guide) and a teacher of meditation. In the early 1970s he initiated people into the order of sannyasis, who traditionally renounced the world and practiced asceticism. Reinterpreting the idea of being a sannyasi in terms of detachment rather than asceticism, Rajneesh taught his disciples to live fully in the world without being attached to it.

The first Westerners came to Rajneesh in the early 1970s, and in 1974 the new headquarters of his movement was established in Pune. The basic practice taught at the centre was called dynamic meditation, a process designed to allow people to experience the divine. The centre also developed a diversified program of New Age healing adopted from the West. Rajneesh became well-known for his progressive approach to sexuality, which contrasted with the renunciation of sex advocated by many other Indian teachers.

Rajneesh moved to the United States in 1981 and, the following year, incorporated Rajneeshpuram, a new city he planned to build on an abandoned ranch near Antelope, Ore. During the next few years many of his most trusted aides had abandoned the movement, which was came under investigation for multiple felonies, including arson, attempted murder, drug smuggling, and vote fraud in the nearby town of Antelope. In 1985 Rajneesh pleaded guilty to immigration fraud and was deported from the United States. He was refused entry by to 21 countries before returning to Pune, where his ashram soon grew to 15,000 members.

In later years he took 1989 Rajneesh adopted the Buddhist title name Oshoand altered his teaching on unrestricted sexual activity because of his growing concern over AIDS.. After his death his disciples, convinced that he had been the victim of government intrigue, voiced their belief in his innocence and vowed to continue the movement he started. In the early 21st century it had some 750 centres located in more than 60 countries.